Swedish composer and musician Anna von Hausswolff’s new collaboration with Ethel Cain, “Aging Young Women,” hits on that universal sore spot: time.
On the epic track, von Hausswolff returns to a central refrain, “We're getting older by the hour/Every year we have more fear,” singing of this general truth with the urgency and pain of a specific heartbreak. Sorrow, may be too simple of a word to describe the feeling the song evokes, though; Awe, may be the word that this roaring track brings up, as the two singers’ words are surrounded by a swell of guitars, strings and driving drums.
The track is a standout song from von Hausswolff’s forthcoming album, ICONOCLASTS out October 31 via YEAR0001, von Hausswolff’s music has spanned epic organ yarns to the churning stuff of rock music (though still within an orchestral ambience). Throughout the record, von Hausswolff and co-producer Filip Leyman create a world that is both vast and detailed.
The musical layers add up to a song that feels as huge as a mountain, but also as intimate as a small, warmly lit room. The inclusion of Ethel Cain, whose voice cuts through thick bramble of sound like a perfect blade, only adds to the song’s piercing quality.
PAPER chatted with von Hausswolff about her collaboration with Cain, creating ICONOCLASTS’s sonic world and what inspired this moving song.
I'm very moved by how "Aging Young Women" and its central refrain, "We're getting older by the hour/Every year we have more fear." Tell me about the seed of the idea for this song?
I wrote it in a state of confusion and frustration of not being sure about wanting to build a family of my own. Can I settle with the idea of not having kids? The general theme became bigger with time and now it’s more about unfulfilled dreams, feeling stuck, and the unstoppable movement that is time. It’s no longer about my unfulfilled dreams, it’s more about that sensation of not being able to stop what’s coming.
The sound of this song and this whole record is so huge and lush, yet still so grounded. How did you find the sonic palette for this record?
I believe my previous organ album All Thoughts Fly became a reference for the sound. I love how the organ turned out on that album, the sound is so full of detail yet so big and grand. Me and Filip Leyman, the co-producer of ICONOCLASTS and All Thoughts Fly, wanted to evolve that sound further and combine it with woodwinds, strings and a rock band. We had already worked with organ and woodwind on theatre music which turned out nicely, but the trick for ICONOCLASTS was to find a way to squeeze in all of these instruments without sacrificing detail, so we spent a lot of time processing the sounds to make them all fit together nicely. We didn’t want to lose the drama but we also didn’t want to lose the detail. Then we sent our reference mixes to Sven Johansson who glued it all together beautifully.
How did you and Ethel Cain connect and come to collaborate?
My sister introduced me to her music and later we connected on Instagram. I asked her if she wanted to sing on ”Aging Young Women” and she said yes. I was thinking of her voice when I wrote the song so she was the obvious candidate for this duet.
What attracted you to Ethel Cain as an artist?
The honest timbre of her voice, the compositions, the texture and sound and the lyrics. She’s a fascinating artist who has accomplished a lot at a young age. I’m very curious to see where she’ll go next.
Photography Credit: Fredrik Bengtsson
Creative Director: Andre Jofre
Photographer's Assistant: Martin Kiessling
Creative: Martin Staaf
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